-CONGRATULATIONS-

You are now an Initiate Monk!

The wise understand the value of peace. The experienced understand its price.

Monks tirelessly hone their skills, seeking harmony as well as the ability to protect it.

Monk: Initiate - 1

+5% martial skill EXP gain

7.8 Unarmed Damage (20% STR + 20% AGI)

You can learn or develop 1 School of Martial Artistry

Schools:

(Unnamed): Incomplete

Form 1: Low Kick (Untrained 1%) Form 2: Unassigned Form 3: Unassigned Form 4: Unassigned Form 5: Unassigned

Skills:

Harmony: Initiate 1

+2% effect of meditation

+25% Awareness of your surroundings while meditating

Using Arts does not break meditation

Don smiled, he finally had a combat-related class. Then he frowned.

"Nice!" Cel congratulated him. Don looked up at the fairy as she drifted lazily above his head.

"Isn't this supposed to be a combat-related profession? There are no offensive skills. The only skill here helps me meditate a little better." Don tried not to whine, he really did.

"There aren't any offensive skills yet." She corrected her student, "Monks get tons of combat-related skills, well technically they're called Forms. The trade-off is that you have to learn them manually."

"Oh." Don said

"Come on! this is great! I never expected you to have the chops to get a rare profession so early in the game! It'll take a little work but you can get 5 skills while you're still an Initiate. Most combat professions only give 2 or 3 skills at this point. That versatility will come in handy if nothing else."

"Okay," Don tried not to sound too disappointed. He was hoping for something that would be more immediately helpful against the apes. "So how do I learn these Forms?" he asked.

"Considering that you're a persona-non-grata in all the civilized lands, you're going to have to come up with them on your own."

Don looked at the fairy flatly.

"This was really the best Combat profession you could think of? How am I supposed to just 'come up' with skills?"

"I'm sure you'll manage. You clearly already know some martial arts. The only way to unlock the Martial artist profession in the first place is to perform a Form flawlessly. You might not be able to remember what you're capable of, but those neural pathways people refer to as muscle memory were transferred over with the rest of your consciousness. It's getting light out though, let's get out of here and we can keep talking in the refuge."

Don rose to his feet and the pair made their way out of the clearing and back towards the refuge at an easy pace.

"I already know these Forms?" Don asked. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around that concept.

"Apparently. You used one instinctually against Gaz. That's not the sort of thing you can do without lots of training."

"What reason would I have to train fighting techniques?" Don asked. Cel shrugged.

"No idea, but it's clear that you did. We'll have to try and get you to perform four more moves to finish your first school later on. I'm kind of excited to see what you come up with!"

That gave Don plenty to think about and they lapsed into silence. He got the sense that the place he came from before was entirely safe. Why would he need to know how to fight? It troubled Don. Was he a violent criminal before? One who delighted in hurting others to the point that he studied ways to do it more efficiently?

Don was still wrapped up in those unsettling thoughts when Kat fell out of the branches to land on a boulder in front of him.

"Grey died because of you." He said without preamble. Don reeled from the unexpected gut-punch. Kat continued glaring at him. "But she also said you were our best, our only hope of reclaiming a life worth living. I want to be clear. I hate you. I wish you never came to the refuge, but I will finish the last task Grey set before me."

After a few more seconds of glaring Don finally asked the obvious question.

"What task?"

Kat looked like he didn't want to speak with Don, but he eventually answered.

"I am to assist you in driving off the bad things."

Don let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me! I'm not doing this for you. If you fail, and I could have helped, it would be a disgrace to Grey's memory." Kat spat and hissed the words at Don with sudden intensity. He turned tail and disappeared into the foliage without another word. He clearly didn't want to spend any more time with Don than was absolutely necessary.

The Demon and Fairy exchanged a look.

"He's wrong you know," Cel said in a comforting tone "Gaz had much more to do with Grey's death than you. Kat is just grieving, he needs someone to lash out at but without Gaz, you're the only one he has to blame."

Don's shoulders slumped. The well-intentioned words only made him feel worse. Cel picked up on his mood and pushed comforting feelings through their connection.

"Grey believed in you. If you want to make things right, finish her quest."

Cel was right, again. Don could regret his role in Grey's death, or he could make a difference. He chose the latter, though he still managed the former well enough. The rest of their walk was carried out in silence. When Don made it back to the entrance, he found an unexpected scene.

ColoColo were scampering around the chamber frantically. Don panicked for a moment before he realized what had them so excited. Groups of ColoColo were banding together, defending small piles of nuts while members of those groups darted out, trying to steal from others. Don's remorse was washed away by a wave of blistering anger.

"What, are you doing?" He demanded of his feathered subjects. All movement stopped instantly. No one offered up an answer so Don continued.

"This is not how a community behaves. Bring all the nuts here" Don waited for the little monsters to bring the food to him. They were reluctant but did as they were told. Once all the food was in front of him he asked them another question.

"Who does this food belong to?" He let the silence linger. The ColoColo grew more and more uncomfortable, shifting their weight and looking anywhere but at Don. One finally offered what it thought Don wanted to hear.

"You?"

Don shook his head.

"This food belongs to the ColoColo." His statement only made the monsters more confused as they looked around at each other."

"I can have them?" Asked one of the monsters.

"No. They don't belong to any one of you, they belong to all of you. Anyone who is hungry can eat but I won't have those who don't need them hoarding food while those in need go without. They will stay right here. No one is going to take them, hide them or otherwise keep them from your nestmates. If you're hungry, eat, if not, go away."

Don glared at his subjects until the majority of them slunk away. A few stayed and furtively pulled nuts off of the pile before scurrying to the edges of the chamber and gnawing on the shells. They kept their eyes on Don the whole while, making sure he wasn't going to have another outburst.

"Nicely handled," Said Cel

"What do you mean?" Don asked

"It looks like you have some natural leadership skills. You took control of that riot in no time flat." She praised him before adding an unnecessary afterthought "It probably helps that you're as intimidating as hell."

"I just pointed out the obvious..." Don mumbled

"And you did it forcefully. Way to lay down the law!" Cel slapped him on the back, a wide grin splitting her face.

Don wasn't comfortable with her praise and let the subject drop. His tribe wasn't fighting each other anymore and that was what mattered.

When they got to the alchemy round. there was another surprise waiting for them. A pile of rabbits nearly blocked off the entrance. Unlike the nuts, no one was fighting over them. Sik was busy with a potion so Don turned to Nap. She was asleep, making soft rhythmic noises but Don needed answers.

"What are these for?" Don asked Nap once he woke her. She gave Don her trademark bleary stare before responding.

"Food"

Don took a deep breath.

"Why are they just piled here? Why haven't you eaten them yet?"

It took a few seconds for Nap to understand the questions, then a few more for her to come up with her response.

"The Chieftan cooks them, we were waiting for you."

"What does 'cooks' mean?" Don asked

"Holding over fire. It makes them tasty and more filling." Nap was finally waking up now and she was starting to drool at the thought.

"Well I'm not doing that." Don balked at the idea of intentionally starting a fire.

"You have to, no one else knows how"

"I don't either! Besides, fire in here would ruin the ingredients, the tunnels are too small, the entrance chamber has no ventilation and the meeting hall is too exposed."

Nap looked crestfallen.

"You don't know how to cook?" she asked

"No! I don't think I've even eaten before I came to this refuge! Didn't you learn how to cook from Grey?"

"No, she said it was dangerous and to let her do it."

"Didn't you see how she did it at least?"

Nap nodded hesitantly.

"But only Grey could make fire."

"Didn't you see how she did that part too?"

"Yes," Nap held her paws out in front of her "She went like this, and then foom! Fire came out. Can't you make it too?"

Don was pretty sure that's not how combustion worked and he was unwilling to play with fire even if it was.

"I don't think so."

"Then what can we do with all these?" Nap asked

"Can you eat them as they are now?"

Nap pulled a face.

"Eww, they taste gross unless you cook them."

Don sighed,

"Well, then I guess we're not going to eat them unless you have any suggestions Cel."

"There are a few ways to make fire but you were right, there's no good place in the refuge to cook anymore."

"That settles it," Don decided "We'll just have to keep these for later."

Sik finished with his potion and chimed in.

"We can't do that. They will start to rot and spread disease" He said

Don sighed He didn't like what he was about to do but it didn't seem like he had much of a choice.

"We will have to just get rid of them then." He looked at the mound of dead animals. There were so many.

He emptied out his inventory except for his emergency stink bomb and started storing the rabbits. He took them to the entrance chamber and piled them up there before going back for more. The exercise let him count all the rabbits. There were no less than 42. That was more rabbits than ColoColo in his tribe. He had no idea they were such efficient hunters. Kat made it sound like only a few ColoColo could hunt them reliably. In fact, Gaz's record as the best hunter was 3 in one night. Something didn't add up but this couldn't be a bad thing, except for all the waste...

As Don lowered the rabbit carcasses into the underwater river, letting them be swept away by the current, something occurred to him.

"Cel, You said these animals weren't real... But you thought the same about the ColoColo at that time. Is there a chance..."

He didn't finish his question, just letting the grim possibility hang in the air. Cel at least gave it some thought before replying.

"...I doubt it. A rabbit has such low intelligence that there shouldn't be room for self-awareness... Probably."

The unremarkable disposal suddenly became a macabre ritual. 42 possibly sentient creatures. Don shuddered but he had no choice but to finish disposing of the corpses. Soon he was finished and back in the alchemy workshop, doing his best not to look at the sticky puddle where the rabbits had been.

Don was eager to make more potions until he remembered he was out of gourds. Sik had been able to continue making potions because the other ColoColo brought in a half dozen of them throughout the night but he had also used them all up. Don wasn't going to complain, they could always use more potions, he just wished he had the foresight to ask them to gather more.

Without recourse to Alchemy, Don was suddenly eager to improve his new profession. Before he could however, Cel stopped him.

"Sleep," she said firmly while pointing to one side of the alchemy workshop.

"There's no time for that. I have to keep improving or I'll never be a match for those apes."

"It's helpful when leaders are intelligent and wise, you will lose both of those qualities if you let the 'sleepy' debuff stack up too many times. You will have to make up the sleep eventually anyways. It's best to stay ahead of it."

"Okay, but we should use your [fairy dust] first" Don protested. Cel agreed.

Instead of wasting a potion to free up a gourd, Don decided to drink a stamina potion. It wasn't as intense as the magical potion but he still used the chance to pump out pushups for the 5-minute duration of the potion. He was left fatigued afterward but he would be able to sleep that off. Don kept up his exercises until his stamina bottomed out again and he was surprised by a very welcome message.

END: 19 --> 20 Congratulations!

You have trained your Endurance to its limit!

Trait unlocked: Relentless Relentless

Effects of Hungry, Thirsty, Fatigued and Tired reduced by 50%

HP regeneration increased from END/day to END/hour when outside combat

HP regeneration items and spells work 3x faster when outside combat

Don had finally gotten one of his attributes to 20! The bonus exceeded Don's wildest expectations. He was hoping for another small increase like with his professional skills but this was huge! The biggest weakness of his potions were the side effects. Now that those were halved, Don didn't have to worry about using non-magical potions nearly as much. It also reduced the excruciatingly slow-acting healing potions' durations from 1 hour to 20 minutes! Besides all that, His health would now regenerate 24 times faster than normal so long as he wasn't fighting! That should be more than enough to keep him in prime condition all the time!

Cel agreed with his assessment but noted that the increased natural HP regeneration will make it much easier to train his CON the rest of the way to 20. It had been stuck at 19 for about a week at this point. He wasn't looking forward to that but if he got another bonus like this, it should be totally worth it. For just a moment, he was actually thankful for the increased pain threshold. It would have taken him months of constant training to get to this point without it.

Don calmed down enough to make a new potion and stored it in his inventory next to his magical stink bomb. He was tempted to make a healing potion but Relentless Body only decreased their durations if he wasn't fighting and he was still convinced that no amount of healing would help if he was hit by the apes. Better to focus on not getting hit, and that meant not tiring out at a bad time.

You have crafted: Effective Energizing Potion (magical) SP restored / second: 2.6

Duration: 5 minutes

Total Effect: +792 Stamina

Side Effects: N/A +0% Concoction EXP

With the doubling effect of Cel's [fairy dust], his stamina potions were getting to the point where they were almost too potent. Generating over 26 stamina every 10 seconds was just crazy. He could only hope that there really were no side effects. Creating the potion had also pushed him over another threshold.

DEX: 18 --> 19

He wondered what kind of bonus he would get if he got his crafting attribute up to 20. Would his potions get even stronger? If he had more gourds he might have stayed up all day trying to figure it out but as it was, he wasn't willing to waste potion ingredients. Cel wasn't much use either because apparently, Demons got different bonuses from other races and the few people who unlocked the 'prestige race' in the past didn't share many of their secrets.

Don settled down but found it impossible to sleep. He eventually resorted to asking Sik to use his [Venomous Bite] on him. Sik declined but said he knew someone who would like to help Don out. He left the round and came back with an eager looking Kat. Don threw up his hands.

"Wait a min- gah!"

Kat had already sunk his fangs deep into Don's leg. After a second Don felt a warm sensation spread through his leg, numbing it a little as his stamina dropped 5 points. The next second, the warmth spread into his chest and his stamina fell another 10 points. During the last second Kat stayed attached, Don felt the warmth spread to the rest of his body. His stamina continued falling by 15 points each second. less than 6 increasingly comfortable seconds later, Don was asleep.